When Zhou Ying from Guangzhou ended her 10-year marriage last year she felt a weight lift from her shoulders.

Not only did the 38-year-old get custody of her eight-year-old son, as well as possession of the family flat and a substantial portion of their shared savings, she no longer had to face the constant arguments that had become a feature of her marriage.

There was little romance left between Zhou and her husband, and eventually the relationship became too exhausting for both of them, she said.

“We were in love at first sight and it will always leave a scar that the relationship ended in divorce, but I think it is less painful than if we hated each other and let the boy live in a hostile environment,” Zhou said. “Financially I can support me and my boy. My quality of life is not affected.”

Unlike older generations who may have settled for an unhappy marriage, divorce is no longer socially taboo in China.

Couples can either register a divorce with the civil affairs authority, indicating they have agreed to go their separate ways, or they can sue for divorce through the courts, which can rule on custody of children and how to dispose of any assets.

In the first six months of this year, 1.85 million couples registered for divorce with the civil affairs authority alone, an increase of more than 10 per cent compared with the same period last year.

Three decades ago, in 1986, 460,000 couples registered their divorces with the civil affairs authority – the most common route taken. By 2016, that annual number had risen to 4.15 million.

The average age at which people in China get married is 26, according to a 2015 survey by the All-China Women’s Federation.

Many relationship experts and lawyers put the rising divorce rate down to higher expectations and growing financial independence, especially among women.

But buried in the sharply climbing statistics lies a darker truth: domestic violence and extramarital affairs together are the leading causes of divorce in China.

Beijing No 2 Intermediate People’s Court said in March that 93 per cent of its divorce cases in the past year involved domestic violence or extramarital affairs.

A survey by Jiayuan, a dating website and service provider, in April found 18 per cent of divorced female members attributed domestic violence as the cause. Thirty-eight per cent of female divorcees said they were divorced because their husband cheated on them. For their male counterparts, 25 per cent said they had been cheated on and 2 per cent cited abuse.

Forty-one per cent of divorced members had ended their marriage within the first five years.

Lu Xiaoquan, director of Beijing Qianqian Law Firm, said most of the 1,200 legal consultation requests the firm and organisation received since its establishment involved domestic violence and extramarital affairs.

“Some spouses grew up in a family where domestic violence was prevalent and continued the bad behaviour when they grew up. The social environment was highly tolerant of domestic violence, too,” Lu said.

A relationship expert in Jiayuan, who wished to remain anonymous, said domestic violence included physical action as well as lashing out emotionally and “cold violence” represented by neglect or a lack of communication.

Ruby Xu, a 32-year-old health worker in Beijing who is in the process of filing for divorce, said she felt like she had been trapped in an endless nightmare.

She constantly suffered from verbal abuse from her husband, whom she married just months after first meeting him.

She became pregnant soon after they married but was left alone in hospital for weeks when she suffered complications that threatened the baby’s life.

The abuse escalated to physical a month after she give birth. Her husband usually picked on her for trivial things such as when she bought a medicine prescribed by doctor without telling him, or if she did not rush to the baby the second the infant started crying. He would get very emotional while yelling at her and started to beat her, Xu said.

She tried to endure the abuse for the sake of the baby, but finally decided to divorce her husband after she sustained a skull contusion during a beating. She was thrown out of home and barred from seeing her son.

“I miss my boy so much that sometimes I wait outside my old home in the hope of catching a glimpse of him being taken out to play. It is a very cruel thing not let a mother see her child,” Xu said. “The past three years have been the most painful time of my life. My only hope is for the divorce to grant me custody so I can live with my son again.”

Xu’s divorce case has gone through two hearings and she is now waiting for the decision.

Zhang Qihuai, director of the Lanpeng Law Firm in Beijing, has worked on more than 200 divorce cases in his career. He said the Beijing court’s estimate that 93 per cent of its cases involve domestic violence or extramarital affairs matched his experience.

Zhang represented Wang Baoqiang, a migrant worker-turned actor, in the country’s most high-profile divorce in recent years.

The movie star posted on his Weibo account in August last year that he was seeking a divorce because his wife Ma Rong had cheated on him with his agent.

Ma, who insists there is more to the story, although she has yet to give further details, is suing Wang for tarnishing her reputation in a case that is still ongoing.

“Due to the influence of western culture, couples are pursuing romantic relationships. They are more financially capable of taking their lovers to restaurants and to hotels. Social networks also make finding one-night stands much easier,” Zhang said.

Zhang said couples had raised the bar for their romantic relationships, and were more focused on the “spiritual aspects” of life.

“[Marriage] used to be about providing a stable family structure to ensure the elderly and young children were looked after, but not any more,” Zhang said.

One court in Jinan, Shandong province, has tried to stem the rising tide of divorce by imposing a three-month cooling-off period for couples to think their decision over, according to Xinhua.

Li Jiang, a judge at the district court in Sizhong where the practice started, said he felt a sound family background could have made a difference for some of the juvenile criminals the court tried.

As many as 700 out of every 1,000 cases the court handled were divorces, but the judges believed couples were too quick to seek to end their marriages when they should be working through their disagreements.

They said sometimes the decision had been made in a rush or as a result of parental interference.

At the end of the cooling-off period, couples can either file for divorce as planned or request that their term of contemplation be extended.